The Daily Glance
R.S. Gwynn’s Poetry: A Pocket Anthology is a sad piece of work. I don’t often write negative reviews, but I don’t understand how this book is in its 7th edition. It was put together obviously as a guide for students, but that makes me cringe even more. I tried to give the work a fair chance. I read through the entire book, even the pieces that I’ve read many, many times. The classics are there, and they, of course, are fine, but once we get to the twentieth-century, things just fall apart. I, a poet, found myself repeatedly saying, “If this is recent poetry, I don’t want it.” The omissions abound. No Olson, no Creeley, no . . . I could keep going with a list of well-accepted poets. Beyond the major omissions, the choice of poems seems weak. This anthology presents a white bread picture of poetry. It gives us poets from a more diverse ethnic/racial background than many anthologies, but the poems picked show the poets at their least challenging, least interesting. Amazing poetry is being written now by people of diverse backgrounds, but this anthology does not convince me of that fact.
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